Star Fox: Cry Wolf
by Phanto
Summary: Portrait of flightteam Star Wolf One before impending deployment, possibly part of a much larger story, R
1. Foreword

_**Foreword**_

What this is more than anything is a technique my friend suggested as a remedy against writer's block (and the pre-emptive prevention of it). Contained herein is a portrait of the Venom flight-team Star Wolf One, the retaliation against the Cornerian Star Fox One, their histories and their minds, pending deployment against a Katinan air base in the early days of the invasion.

Basically, Star Wolf is probably the heaviest reason I decided to use Star Fox 64 rather than the SNES game (which I also would have liked to do), along with the BIOWEAPONs anyway, as the grounds for my novelization. Their defeat and deaths, cybernetic reincarnation and final battle in Venom's poison atmosphere all made attractive the prospect of writing about them.

Of course, more than anything, I wanted to develop them as characters and use them as foils for Star Fox One. The Venomian army isn't going to be the nasty, soviet menace they're made out to be in the games (of course, neither are they going to be big-hearted-but-misguided revolutionists), and these four aviators will represent facets of what it takes exactly to take sword up against one's government, to bring about such carnage and call it righteous.

There isn't much more to say here, except I'm starting to want to write about _Star Fox_ (SNES) and that's dangerous. Silly, well-drawn comic.


	2. Prologue

'_And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge_

_With Ate by his side come hot from hell_

_Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice_

_Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of war;'_

"Star Fox: Cry Wolf"  
By Infanteer

'_Andross had many means at his disposal – he firstly routed the allied forces of the Cornerian Confederacy with legions of mechanical drone assault fighters, rabid shock troops for sweeping ground warfare drawn and recruited from all corners of Lylat, and even biogenetically engineered weapons made from the more majestic of living specimens – themselves natural rarities – which devastated his adversaries ruthlessly. And then, when all hope seemed at loss, he employed a trump card – Star Wolf One, an elite aviator squad for tactical assault against specific targets of the Cornerian military. What revolutionary technology he had employed in engineering the Lylat- and ArWing space fighters when working for Corneria, he made obsolete in face of the Wolfenstein Mark I and Mark II fighters__!'_

- Excerpt, recorded seminars of Professor Ang Renard  
_Academy of Military Aviation History, Katina Capital_

_Prologue :_

The sound of the brush is constant, the sweeping of bristles across boot-leather a soothing window into the steely calm of the hand guiding them. The noise is like a sigh, back and forth, a cooing hush-and-be silent lullaby to the targets of their ministrations – a simple pair of aviator combats, their laces undone and coiled downwards towards the cold floor like black ropes of spider-web. Beneath the brush, the thick greasy and formerly dull black polish warmed and spread and hardened to a gleaming shell like black ice caught beneath the headlights of a speeding vehicle.

He rather liked that image, black ice - unexpected and lethal and indifferent. His wrist gained with the thought a more fervent expression of movement while he let the amoebae of his thoughts collect and wander from their instinctive formation like ink drops in water. He did not love or hate polishing his boots – it was only a mediocre activity which needed to be performed. But its listlessness was meditative – unrestrained from so simple an action, he could think or relax or both and he did this with determined professionalism. And of course, that cold gleam, the direct result of his work, was coolly, carnivorously satisfying.

Wing-Captain Wolf Emery O'Donell exhaled hot against the leather of his boot, gave it another speedy brush, and dropped it with a muffled thump. He lifted his second boot in a large, calloused, furred hand, and picked up the applicator brush. They would be like black ice. He had one more pair to finish, and then he would polish his belt buckle, press his uniform, put a gleam on his badges and medals and shine his officer's cap. It was 92 minutes to H-Hour. 92 minutes until the thrusters to their Wolfenstein fighter-crafts began the slow ignition to full power. 92 minutes until flight-team Star Wolf One fell across the skies of idle Katina, 92 minutes until the air was again filled with the black choke of incendiary explosives, the burn of ozone and hot splashing of condensed plasma. 92 minutes until the killing hour.

He needed to be dressed appropriately. Dress, deportment, and attention to detail had been hammered into him across a long and hard life behind the carnage of war. These things were an essential asset to the mind of the soldier – they were essential and applied to the act of killing and survival, fundamental skills that bred the natural reflexes and thought-processes required to be successful, victorious, and surviving. He understood these things now, as he had before and more than ever now, 92 minutes before he would lead his team into a pre-emptive assault against Katina Major, attacking one of the largest Air Bases in the Lylat system and an essential cog to the Cornerian War Machine.

He paused, thumbing a retracted claw against the scratchy fabric of a patch slung across his left eye. He had given an eye for Corneria in the Service. He would take from them so much more. 92 minutes.

He stiffened, reflexively checking his watch, a simple thing of gold and glass. 90 minutes. He was passing the time. It ticked on and he swept his brush against the leather of his boot, and its scratching echoed on down the empty halls of the hangar barracks.

It was a dark lullaby.


	3. Chapter 1: A Wolf Without Pack

"'_What WCpt Wolf Emery O'Donnell had that WLt James "Fox" McCloud Jr. did not, or what he had much more of, was experience. O'Donnell was a veteran of the Cornerian Army since the age of 16 at his enlistment. He spent two years in the Regular Force as an infantryman before moving up to the Cornerian Marines and the Special Forces. At the rank of Master Corporal, he was enlisted in the Cornerian Special Intel Service (or SIS), during which he served in operational theatre during the Katinan Revolution in 3164. After three years, he transferred to the Corneria's Aviator Marine Corps during the First Lylat War in 3167, fighting for the allied forces of the Cornerian United Defense Initiative. He defected across the Venoman line in '74, near the end of the war, and wasn't seen again until the Second War, where he led the Venoman flight team Star Wolf One.'"_

- _**"Venom At War: The Weapons Used, and Learned From"**_RENARD, Ang

Chapter 1: The Wolf Without a Pack


End file.
